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Cape Girardeau School District reaches out to staff on financesWednesday, November 4, 2009As the Cape Girardeau School District works to balance its budget, it is reaching out to its staff. The school board met Tuesday to discuss the status of the district's finances. Superintendent Dr. Jim Welker and district finance director Misty Clifton gave board members a rundown of projected revenue and ways to cut expenditures for the upcoming year. District officials recently sent out a memo to employees explaining the financial situation. Welker said he also set up an e-mail address so staff members could bring up their concerns. "It's a huge challenge, and we all need to pull together," Welker said. After using reserve funds in past years, board members said they want to work to balance the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. As state and local revenue declines, it will be harder to solve the issue, Welker said. Since 2006-2007 district expenditures increased by $6.2 million while revenue increased by $2.8 million. One of the first challenges facing the district is controlling the cost of health insurance. Welker said the district will take steps to prevent it from increasing more than 10 percent. The board will improve the insurance plan at its November meeting, but possible changes could include higher deductibles, co-pays or prescription medicine costs. "Those all might change in terms of keeping it where we can afford it," Welker said. The district has more than $4 million budgeted for insurance costs this year. Employee salaries and benefits account for about 75 percent of the district's $42 million budget. When the board approved teacher salaries in April, it started a five-year plan to bring compensation more in line with other districts. "It is very possible that we might not be able to do that this year," Welker said. "We might have to suspend that plan." The district will hold two forums for staff at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. The first one will be at 4 p.m. Tuesday, and the second will be at 7 p.m. Thursday. Welker said the district is also looking into cost-cutting measures as it analyzes its facilities plan. The district has been working with McCarthy Building Companies, a St. Louis-based firm, to prioritize construction and renovation projects for the district's 10 buildings. The district will also have facility committee meetings Nov. 19 and Dec. 7 to discuss the plan. The board will also hold a special board meeting in December to discuss a potential bond issue. The rough draft of the facilities plan calls for $35 million in projects. Welker said some capital projects could be covered through the bond issue, freeing up some operating funds. Renovation projects could also make district buildings more efficient and bring down utility costs, he said. As the district moves forward, the financial plan will merge with the facilities plan. "We're trying to see how the two fit together," Welker said. Board member Dr. Steven Trautwein said combining the two plans will be helpful to the process. "This looks like it's going to be the best tool we have to analyze how to cut costs," he said. 388-3627 Pertinent address: 301 N. Clark Ave. Cape Girardeau, MO Comments  Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please Login or Create an account first, and then you will be able to flag a comment as objectionable. Please also note that those who post comments on semissourian.com may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
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who needs meetings, budget cuts, and concerns about funding?? the teachers should just vote themselves a magical raise - that's good enough for city employees, right??
To many chiefs and not enough indians.
Cut down on paper. My youngest one comes home from elementary school with 5-15 pieces of paper every day. On most the work/coloring is only started. When I went to school we used notebooks that the parents bought, even in elementary school. I've been meaning to count the papers she brings home but the task is just too overwhelming cause there are so many.
Do not tinker with teacher salaries or benefits. Eliminate sports and music programs. Eliminate all field trips and bring the kids back into the classroom where they belong. Put a one year moratorium on all building. Furlough at least one superintendent, and at least one assistant principal from the highschool. Every elementary school should have one and only one principal. Then start looking at guidance counselors. Elementary class sizes can be as high as 25 and the students will be just fine with that. Eliminate music and art classes at the grade school level. Let's get the kids to focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Tough times call for desperate measures. We should NEVER have dipped into those reserves in the first place. Do not get preoccupied with bond issues for now. The citizens of Cape cannot take any more of this!
The main problem that caused us to have such a huge shortfall was the state funding cut.
Cutting out sports programs and music programs, as beaker suggested, is not the answer. These things keep the kids the parents involved, and they attract students. If you don't have these programs, then those relocating to the community will definitely choose another district. It's ridiculous to even make such comments. However, there are ways to trim the athletic budget as well. We don't need to have so many sports for one thing. Not every student needs to find a sport they can be a part of. Perhaps fewer sports offered will mean more participation in other ares or more players per team. For example, The soccer team was so short on players this year that 1/2 the varsity also played junior varsity, and it is rummored that there will be only a varsity team next year. If there weren't as many other sports, then maybe there would be more soccer players or perhaps a larger band.
I agree with cutting down on the paper waste, but that will only be a small drop in the bucket when you're talking about being a million over budget. However, every little bit adds up!
Now, for trimming the educational budget, I'd REALLY like to see us cut out some of the positions we have for servies for special needs students. Surely, a handicapped child can share a teacher assistant, etc. I understand that all students with disabilities are eligible to receive a public education in the "least restrictive" environment, but having so many special services and having to bend over backwards to offer each student their own assistant is absurd. If the parents want their children to attend public school and use tax payer dollars to do so, at some point the parents also need to be willing to make some concessions. All non-handicapped students already are, and it's time those with handicaps do so as well.
We can also have fewer course offerings, thereby elimanting some teachers all together, especially in some of the areas like language and art. Yes, I agree we should hit ******* the basics and prioritize from there. I also don't understand why each and every school has to have so many people working in the library. How hard is it to help a student check out a book? The high school has at least two full-time employees working in the library, and that's a lot of money when you consider just how many school librarians there are across the district. This is also an area where parents could volunteer on a rotating basis. St. Vincent handled their school library totally through volunteers, and they served grades K-8th. Along those same lines, the school cafeterias are another place that could really benefit from volunteer parent labor. Many parents would love to be on a rotating schedule for this type of involvement, and, again, St. Vincent did this.
So, those are my suggestions for the day!
I bet you that the higher ups will cut the lower downs first.. The first people they will cut are the janitors and cooks and the others that don't make much, when they need to focus on the ones that make the most like, the Supertendent on down. Start the cuts at the top and work your way down. The poor janitors and cooks can't even afford to get sick due to insurance costs, and they are talking about higher deductibles. I think the schools are at about $1500.00 on their deductable now, and you think a janitor that is making around $8.00/hour can afford that? Bottom line is I support the Cape Schools and I would be the first to vote for a no tax increase bond issue, if I lived in Cape.
Comments like Beaker's are the ones that scare me anytime school budget issues arise. Sports, music, art--all of these activities are not only valuable educationally, but they are valuable to the students' fulfillment as people. I know that some people think of art and music as leisure-only activities; fun things to do, or even worse, wastes of time. This is not the case. Students need a creative outlet, something to help them grow and express themselves and discover who they are and how to see the beauty in the world around them. Yet you suggest taking it away from them during the most influential stage in their lives? The thought horrifies me.
my_thoughts, I agree that perhaps sports could be narrowed. Although my first thought, if there weren't enough players for the soccer team, wouldn't be to cut other sports so there would be more soccer players---it would be to forego soccer. If there's not enough interest in a program, maybe it's time for it to go. Or put it to the students, give them an option. Let them know that something has to give, and see what they would like to keep, and what they think they can live without.
Mainly, though, I wonder if there's really the need for as much administrative staff as currently exists. I think adjustments by other employees here and there could eliminate some of the administrative costs. A rotating schedule in the library, for instance. Or in a school secretarial position. But please, PLEASE don't cut art and music!!!
MusicMaker, you have an excellent point regarding asking the students which programs they would like to see and which ones they would like to cut, and I agree that there is also a lot of room to cut administrative staff.
I hope some of those who are brainstorming for ideas will look at the suggestions given here.
trekker, Having a $1,500 deductible is not uncommon and these days insurance is more about just making sure you have coverage for when something major happens,so anyone who has coverage should be thankful. I don't pity the janitors and others whose deductible is this high. We have a $5,000 deductible for each family member, which is why we make every attempt to stay healthy. That being said, I do not think the salaries of those on the bottom tier should not be cut one bit! They make little enough as it is. I do think we can eliminate some of the cafeteria staff by using parent volunteers, but I wouldn't advocate having anyone lose their job over it. I'd like to see that happen naturally through attrition or relocation.